152. Telegram From the Embassy in Nicaragua to the Department of State1
6136. For Deputy Secretary Christopher and Assistant Secretary Vaky From Ambassador Bowdler—Caracas, San Jose and Panama For Ambassador. Subject: Nicaragua Mediation No. 180; Negotiating Group Note Calling Parties to Settlement.
1. NG met with Somoza for an hour and a quarter this morning. November 27. FonMin Quintana joined the group about a third of the way through the session.
2. Jimenez presented the NG note (Managua 6117).2 Somoza glanced through it quickly to get the gist and commented that we continued to personalize the issue by asking for his departure. He proceeded cleverly to play on the nationalistic, anti-US sensibilities of my colleagues, a game which went on for about half an hour and in which Quintana participated with gusto. The themes used were not new but were played in a louder way. These included references to the “Washington plan” hatched in the State Department, a review of past U.S. interventions in Nicaragua and how these had failed, the unconstitutionality of the NG proposal, the Communist threat in Central America, and the dangerous precedent which the NG action would constitute for other small LA states which run afoul of the USG.
3. My colleagues did not fall for this, although I sensed that some of the arguments struck responsive chords. They helped me bring the discussion back to the central issue of Somoza’s continued presence in Nicaragua as the impediment to a peaceful solution. This opened the way for a candid group exchange on the need to test public opinion on his continuation in power and how the succession would be handled in the event of an adverse vote. While there was no ground covered that I had not gone over with Somoza in our two-hour conversation on November 10 (Managua 5770),3 it was the first time that he was getting the message so directly from my colleagues against the background of our impending departure if he and the FAO did not take a [Page 404] more constructive attitude toward the NG proposal. Somoza this time seemed to want to explore the possibility of his departure and the arrangements to fill the power vacuum. He asked that we meet informally with him after he had consulted with his advisers. My colleagues emerged from the meeting encouraged by the exchange. I counselled caution since I detected no give beyond the disposition to talk further. In the absence of concrete indications of willingness to leave or accept our formula for a plebiscite, Somoza’s apparent flexibility may be no more than an effort to gain time, and cast himself in a more favorable light, especially now that the FAO has taken such an intransigent position.
4. While NG was delivering note to Somoza, Dick Barnebey delivered our note to Rafael Cordova Rivas since Alfonso Robelo was not to be found. In order to maintain the image of no FAO dialogue with the NG Cordova Rivas went out of his way to schedule the encounter in a private home. He left the meeting of his own political group (UDEL) to receive statement, and said he would raise it at FAO meeting scheduled for 4:00 p.m. today.
5. Cordova Rivas read statement through carefully, but made no specific comment on it. He did make some general observations on the plebiscite issue. He said the main obstacle to FAO’s favorable consideration of the plebiscite proposal is that FAO leaders’ credibility with their rank-and-file supporters would be jeopardized if they support this initiative. The plebiscite, he said, is criticized as just another in the opposition’s series of discredited arrangements with Somoza. He said that unity of the FAO might be endangered over plebiscite issue. He also questioned possibility of holding an honest election while Somoza is in power. As illustration, he said Somoza in his reply to NG had cleverly referred to having to keep local authorities (Jueces de Mesta) at the scene of the elections. Cordova Rivas did, however, hear out Barnebey’s response that a rigidly supervised election, with international observers at each consolidated voting precinct, could counter this standard Somoza/PLN interference with the balloting.
6. Barnebey urged that Cordova Rivas do what he could to assure that FAO consider this proposal calmly, and avoid an abrupt and ill-considered response. Cordova Rivas agreed, suggesting FAO would probably not give the NG an immediate reply. He noted NG’s willingness to meet with FAO to clarify or explain its proposal, but made no request for any such meeting. Tonight, however, I received a call from Javier Zavala of Robelo’s MDN, who asked for a meeting for himself and Jaime Chamorro with the NG tomorrow, prior to MDN meeting.
No reservations were expressed over their willingness to meet with NG as a group at the Guatemalan Embassy.
- Source: National Archives, RG 59, Central Foreign Policy File, P780187–2359. Confidential; Immediate; Exdis Distribute as Nodis. Sent for information Immediate to Caracas, San José, and Panama City.↩
- Telegram 6117 from Managua, November 27, included the Spanish-language text of the final version of the Negotiating Group response to Somoza and the FAO concerning the Negotiating Group’s plebiscite proposal. (National Archives, RG 59, Central Foreign Policy File, D780488–0727)↩
- See footnote 2, Document 137.↩